Soleimani’s Successor Appears in Iraq After Mysterious Disappearance During Iran War
Brig. Gen. Esmail Qaani, head of the foreign operations division of Iran’s terrorist Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) Quds Force, surfaced in Iraq on Saturday for meetings with Shiite militias loyal to Tehran. Qaani’s visit was part of a complex power struggle around the Iraqi prime minister’s office.
Qaani has kept a low profile during much of the US-Israeli conflict with Iran. He appeared to have completely disappeared in March, leading to speculation that he had been killed by an airstrike, but he sent a message of congratulations to his forces in early April for allegedly giving “regrettable lessons to the enemies of humanity.”
Qaani’s predecessor, Brig. General Qassem Soleimani, was liquid by a U.S. airstrike near the airport in Baghdad, Iraq, in January 2020. Soleimani was in Iraq to coordinate attacks on U.S. positions with Iran’s Shiite puppet militias, most of whom became deputy members of the Iraqi army under the rubric of the “Popular Mobilization Forces” (PMF) when the Iraqi government desperately needed manpower to fight the insurgent Islamic State.
Iran’s proxies in Iraq have occasionally launched attacks on U.S. bases since Soleimani’s death, renaming themselves the “Islamic Resistance in Iraq” (IRI).
The IRI spear drone attacks on behalf of Iran during the March conflict. Most of their targets were in the Kurdistan region of Iraq, where the United States has bases, including at Erbil International Airport.
The largest of Iraq’s Shiite militias, Kataib Hezbollah (KH), said it wanted to drag the United States into “a long war of attrition,” after which the militias would “leave no American presence in the region in general, particularly in Iraq.” The founder of the KH, Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis, was killed in the same airstrike that eliminated Soleimani in 2020.
The National reported that Qaani was in Baghdad on Saturday to hold meetings with “pro-Tehran militias and political leaders.” The meeting had a strong political dimension because Iraq is currently struggling to fill the post of prime minister and the power of Shiite militias gives Tehran an effective veto over candidates.
“The presence of Brigadier General Qaani in Baghdad is significant. He has not been seen publicly since the outbreak of the war in Iran and his visit demonstrates Tehran’s direct involvement in the formation of the Iraqi government and in orchestrating the activities of the armed factions,” The National note.
Qaani issued a fiery statement in which he said Iraq was “too big for anyone to interfere in its affairs, especially war criminals, especially those who committed crimes against humanity.”
“The choice of prime minister rests entirely with the Iraqi people,” he said, although the aim of his visit was to make clear that the weakened government in Tehran still has a say in the matter.
According to Iraqi Shiite politicians who met with Qaani, one of the main goals of his visit was to rally Shiites under Iran’s leadership and get them to put aside their quarrels, so they could use their combined strength to install a prime minister in Iraq.
So far, Iraqi Shiites have only succeeded in keeping the post of prime minister vacant. After five months of political unrest, Iraq detained presidential election this month, and the winner was Nizar Amidi of the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan party. The first round of voting was close, but Amidi was the clear winner in the second round.
According to the Iraqi constitution, the president has only 15 days to form a government and seat a Prime Minister, working with the largest bloc in Parliament. This usually causes a lot of post-election jostling, as various parties form alliances to declare themselves “the largest bloc” and gain the power to appoint a prime minister. To date, no Iraqi government has been formed within the 15-day deadline, and the process has lasted almost a year.
Iraqi Kurds are currently fragmented by their own internal disagreements, so Amidi lacks the strength to form a government led by his own party and regional interests. Furthermore, Iraq faces the same kind of sectarian balance in power sharing as Lebanon, so the president is usually Kurdish, the speaker of parliament is usually a Sunni Arab, and the prime minister is usually Shiite.
The largest bloc at present is a group of Shiite parties known as the Shiite Coordination Framework, but its members have failed to agree on a candidate for prime minister.
Current interim Prime Minister Mohammed Shia al-Sudani has broad support to remain in office, but many lawmakers in the Shiite Coordination Framework prefer Nouri al-Maliki, a former prime minister who is more openly pro-Iranian than Sudanese.
The United States is strongly opposed to Maliki, which is one of the main reasons why Qaani showed up in Baghdad on Saturday to mutter about the nefarious influence of “war criminals.”
In January, President Donald Trump directly said Iraq must not appoint Maliki as prime minister, calling him a “very bad choice” and pointing out that Iraq “sunk into poverty and total chaos” the last time he was in power. He threatened to withdraw all American support for Iraq if Maliki became prime minister again.
According to Al Jazeera News, Qaani paid a surprise visit in Baghdad at the invitation of Soudani, who asked him to dissuade the Shiite coordination framework from appointing Maliki or his ally Bassem al-Badri as prime minister. Badri is apparently a popular choice among influential Shiites because he does not lead his own party. Before Qaani’s visit on Saturday, he had almost secured the support he needed to take office.
Qaani insisted on going to Baghdad in the presence of American envoy Tom Barrack.
“The simultaneous arrival of these rival mediators underscores the precarious state of Iraqi sovereignty as the country’s rival Shiite factions remain paralyzed by internal competition and external economic pressures,” Kurdistan24 said.
The day before Qaani’s visit, the US Treasury Department announced new sanctions against seven Iraqi militia commanders, including KH commanders.
“We will not allow Iranian-backed Iraqi terrorist militias to threaten American lives or interests. Those who enable these militias’ violence will be held accountable,” Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said.
Kurdistan24 reported that Maliki was “visibly angry” at the suggestion that he should step down in favor of Badri as a compromise candidate, while Soudani attempts to remain a prime minister who could be sympathetic to Iran’s interests without alienating the United States. The United States has only publicly stated that Maliki is unacceptable, so it was unclear whether Barrack was in Baghdad to lobby for a particular alternative candidate.
